TWINBEARZ: The forcast is: Busy.

1Feb/100

TWINBEARZ: The forcast is: Busy.

Ahhhh. February 1st. A new month. the year has clearly gotten underway. the holidays are long over. Winter will be ending soon. the days are getting longer again. So many nice things.

At least that's what I was thinking until I realized all the crap I have to do this month. the kids' birthday is in little over a month. I have sworn myself to not stress over party planning like I did last year, and just try to be as quick and dirty about it as I can. So I asked the kids what they would like to do for their birthday, and got two different reactions:

Child A: I want to just have my birthday with you and Papa and (sibling) and the baby...

Child B: I want a party.

Now I'll let you guess who said what.... (insert Jeopardy theme)...

Did you guess? yes, Kestian is the "family guy" while Adelaide is the "party girl."

Hmmmm.... This wasn't making it any easier. I wasn't sure what to do. Knowing that Kestian can get overstimulated with too many people, I was all for going low-key this year. but Adelaide loves a good party and I don't want to deny her that.

After several discussions, I think we have agreed on a nice family lunch, then a party at the Explorium. it will be a lot like what we did last year (and by "a lot" I mean "exactly"). but this way everyone gets a bit of what they wanted.

So I'll book the room and start making my own invitations. I've decided to make my own cakes this year, which will save us a lot of money and shouldn't really be all that much trouble. of course, the kids won't have some awesome Thomas the Train cake like Karen made last year, but thankfully my kids' standards are still low enough these days that I can get away with a plain old cake. as long as they like the flavor and there are some fun candles on it, we should be good. Right? Right. At least that's what I am going with.

Ok, so that takes care of the kids' birthday. oh, except what treats to bring to school that day, what birthday presents to get them, what party favors to buy... oh wait, I thought this was going to be "quick and dirty"... Ha! Foolish Laura! Ok, ignoring my whole must-think-of-everything side, I think we've got all that worked out... what else?

Oh yeah, Damon's birthday. the day after the kids' birthday no less, and most likely the day we'll be having the party. He's a low-key kind of guy when it comes to birthdays, so we'll probably do something like a nice dinner and an ice cream cake. (Good lord there will be a lot of cake!)

Ok...what else? well there that whole minivan thing. our bank is lowering auto-loan rates for the month of February, plus hopefully the whole Toyota recall thing will give us a negotiating advantage. all we have to get is get approved for our loan, do our little negotiating trick using W. James Bragg's "Fax Attack" method (which got us an awesome deal on our Matrix), and we can go on our merry way.

Hmmm... what else? oh yeah....taxes. Need to get that done early. We never did file an amendment to our taxes last year for the new homeowners tax credit (although we should have) and that money will really help with the car now. Either way, though, I just want the taxes done early in case there are any baby issues later on.

Ok, so we have planning the kids' party, planning Damon's birthday, buying a minvan, and doing taxes, all in the next few weeks. Anything else? Hopefully that is all. It's a lot to do in one month, but when it is all done, March should be a breeze!

TWINBEARZ: the forcast is: Busy.